AT A LYCEUM,
not long since, I felt that the lecturer had chosen a theme too foreign
to himself, and so failed to interest me as much as he might have done.
He described things not in or near to his heart, but toward his
extremities
and superficies. There was, in this sense, no truly central or
centralizing
thought in the lecture. I would have had him deal with his privatest
experience,
as the poet does. The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was
when
one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. I am
surprised,
as well as delighted, when this happens, it is such a rare use he would
make of me, as if he were acquainted with the tool. Commonly, if men
want
anything of me, it is only to know how many acres I make of their land,
— since I am a surveyor, — or, at most, what trivial news I have
burdened
myself with. They never will go to law for my meat; they prefer the
shell.
A man once came a considerable distance to ask me to lecture on
Slavery;
but on conversing with him, I found that he and his clique expected
seven
eighths of the lecture to be theirs, and only one eighth mine; so I
declined.
I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere, — for I
have
had a little experience in that business, — that there is a desire to
hear
what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool
in the country, — and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or
such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I
will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and
engaged
to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I
bore
them beyond all precedent.

[2]
So now I would say something similar to you, my readers. Since you
are my readers, and I have not been much of a traveller, I will not
talk
about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As
the
time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the
criticism.

[3]
Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives. [4]
This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked
almost every night by the panting of the locomotive.(1)
It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to
see
mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I
cannot
easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled
for
dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the
fields,
took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was
tossed
out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or
scared
out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was
thus incapacitated for — business! I think that there is nothing, not
even
crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than
this incessant business.

[5]
There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts
of
our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along the
edge
of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep him out
of
mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging there with him.
The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money to board,
and
leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, most will commend
me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I choose to devote
myself
to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little
money,
they may be inclined to look on me as an idler. Nevertheless, as I do
not
need the police of meaningless labor to regulate me, and do not see
anything
absolutely praiseworthy in this fellow's undertaking any more than in
many
an enterprise of our own or foreign governments, however amusing it may
be to him or them, I prefer to finish my education at a different
school.

[6]
If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in
danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as
a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her
time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a
town
had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! [7]
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in
throwing
stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they
might
earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. For
instance:
just after sunrise, one summer morning, I noticed one of my neighbors
walking
beside his team, which was slowly drawing a heavy hewn stone swung
under
the axle, surrounded by an atmosphere of industry, — his day's work
begun,
— his brow commenced to sweat, — a reproach to all sluggards and
idlers,
— pausing abreast the shoulders of his oxen, and half turning round
with
a flourish of his merciful whip, while they gained their length on him.
And I thought, Such is the labor which the American Congress exists to
protect, — honest, manly toil, — honest as the day is long, — that
makes
his bread taste sweet, and keeps society sweet, — which all men respect
and have consecrated; one of the sacred band, doing the needful but
irksome
drudgery. Indeed, I felt a slight reproach, because I observed this
from
a window, and was not abroad and stirring about a similar business. The
day went by, and at evening I passed the yard of another neighbor, who
keeps many servants, and spends much money foolishly, while he adds
nothing
to the common stock, and there I saw the stone of the morning lying
beside
a whimsical structure intended to adorn this Lord Timothy Dexter's(2) premises, and the dignity
forthwith departed
from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In my opinion, the sun was made
to light worthier toil than this. I may add that his employer has since
run off, in debt to a good part of the town, and, after passing through
Chancery,(3) has settled
somewhere
else, there to become once more a patron of the arts. [8]
The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead
downward.
To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to
have
been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages
which
his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If you would
get
money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down
perpendicularly. Those services which the community will most readily
pay
for, it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for being
something
less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a genius any more
wisely.
Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents
of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another
poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe. As for my
own
business, even that kind of surveying which I could do with most
satisfaction
my employers do not want. They would prefer that I should do my work
coarsely
and not too well, ay, not well enough. When I observe that there are
different
ways of surveying, my employer commonly asks which will give him the
most
land, not which is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring
cord-wood,
and tried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told me
that
the sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly, — that
he was already too accurate for them, and therefore they commonly got
their
wood measured in Charlestown before crossing the bridge.

[9]
The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a good
job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary
sense,
it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they
would
not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood
merely,
but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your
work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

[10]
It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to
their
minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off from
their present pursuit. I see advertisements for active young
men,
as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. Yet I have been
surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to
embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do,
my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful
compliment
this is to pay me! As if he had met me half-way across the ocean
beating
up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to me to go along
with him! If I did, what do you think the underwriters would say? No,
no!
I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. To tell the
truth,
I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen, when I was a boy,
sauntering
in my native port, and as soon as I came of age I embarked.

[11]
The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise
money
enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire
a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and
valuable
man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The
inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are
forever
expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were
rarely
disappointed.

[12]
Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. I
feel
that my connection with and obligation to society are still very slight
and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, and by
which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my
contemporaries,
are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not often reminded that
they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But I foresee that if my
wants should be much increased, the labor required to supply them would
become a drudgery. If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to
society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be
nothing
left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my
birthright
for a mess of pottage. I wish to suggest that a man may be very
industrious,
and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than
he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All
great
enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain
his
body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the
shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving. But as it is
said
of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of
men
generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be
surely prophesied.

[13]
Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born,
but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of
friends,
or a government pension, — provided you continue to breathe, — by
whatever
fine synonyms you describe these relations, is to go into the
almshouse.
On Sundays the poor debtor goes to church to take an account of stock,
and finds, of course, that his outgoes have been greater than his
income.
In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into chancery, make a clean
confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus men will lie on
their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make an effort to
get up.

[14]
As for the comparative demand which men make on life, it is an
important
difference between two, that the one is satisfied with a level success,
that his marks can all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other,
however
low and unsuccessful his life may be, constantly elevates his aim,
though
at a very slight angle to the horizon. I should much rather be the last
man, — though, as the Orientals say, "Greatness doth not approach him
who
is forever looking down; and all those who are looking high are growing
poor."

[15]
It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered
written
on the subject of getting a living; how to make getting a living not
merely
honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious; for if getting
a living is not so, then living is not. One would think, from looking
at
literature, that this question had never disturbed a solitary
individual's
musings. Is it that men are too much disgusted with their experience to
speak of it? The lesson of value which money teaches, which the Author
of the Universe has taken so much pains to teach us, we are inclined to
skip altogether. As for the means of living, it is wonderful how
indifferent
men of all classes are about it, even reformers, so called, — whether
they
inherit, or earn, or steal it. I think that Society has done nothing
for
us in this respect, or at least has undone what she has done. Cold and
hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men
have
adopted and advise to ward them off. [16]
The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can
one
be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other
men?
— if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom
work
in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed by her example?
Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life? Is she merely
the
miller who grinds the finest logic? It is pertinent to ask if Plato(4) got his living in a
better way or more
successfully
than his contemporaries, — or did he succumb to the difficulties of
life
like other men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by
indifference,
or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live, because his aunt
remembered him in her will? The ways in which most men get their
living,
that is, live, are mere makeshifts, and a shirking of the real business
of life, — chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do
not mean, any better. [17]
The rush to California,(5) for
instance,
and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and
prophets,
so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind.
That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of
commanding
the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to
society!
And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development
of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a
living.
The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth
the dust of a puffball. The hog that gets his living by rooting,
stirring
up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command
the
wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such
a price for it. Even Mahomet(6)
knew that God did not make this world in jest. It makes God to be a
moneyed
gentleman who scatters a handful of pennies in order to see mankind
scramble
for them. The world's raffle! A subsistence in the domains of Nature a
thing to be raffled for! What a comment, what a satire, on our
institutions!
The conclusion will be, that mankind will hang itself upon a tree. And
have all the precepts in all the Bibles taught men only this? and is
the
last and most admirable invention of the human race only an improved
muck-rake?
Is this the ground on which Orientals and Occidentals meet? Did God
direct
us so to get our living, digging where we never planted, — and He
would,
perchance, reward us with lumps of gold?

[18]
God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and
raiment,
but the unrighteous man found a facsimile of the same in God's
coffers,
and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It
is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world
has
seen. I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I
have
seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so
malleable
as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a
grain of wisdom.

[19]
The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as much a gambler as
his fellow in the saloons of San Francisco. What difference does it
make
whether you shake dirt or shake dice? If you win, society is the loser.
The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever checks and
compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell me that you worked
hard to get your gold. So does the Devil work hard. The way of
transgressors
may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer who goes to the
mines
sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the
gold
thus obtained is not the same same thing with the wages of honest toil.
But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the
fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a
ticket
in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so
obvious. [20]
After reading Howitt's account(7)
of the Australian gold-diggings one evening, I had in my mind's eye,
all
night, the numerous valleys, with their streams, all cut up with foul
pits,
from ten to one hundred feet deep, and half a dozen feet across, as
close
as they can be dug, and partly filled with water, — the locality to
which
men furiously rush to probe for their fortunes, — uncertain where they
shall break ground, — not knowing but the gold is under their camp
itself,
— sometimes digging one hundred and sixty feet before they strike the
vein,
or then missing it by a foot, — turned into demons, and regardless of
each
others' rights, in their thirst for riches, — whole valleys, for thirty
miles, suddenly honeycombed by the pits of the miners, so that even
hundreds
are drowned in them, — standing in water, and covered with mud and
clay,
they work night and day, dying of exposure and disease. Having read
this,
and partly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my own
unsatisfactory
life, doing as others do; and with that vision of the diggings still
before
me, I asked myself why I might not be washing some gold daily, though
it
were only the finest particles, — why I might not sink a shaft down to
the gold within me, and work that mine. There is a Ballarat, a
Bendigo
for you, — what though it were a sulky-gully?(8)
At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow and
crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence. Wherever a man
separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there
indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travellers may see only a
gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher
way of the two.

[21]
Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be
found
in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme to
where
it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true
lead,
and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most successful. Is
not our native soil auriferous? Does not a stream from the
golden
mountains flow through our native valley? and has not this for more
than
geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles and forming the
nuggets for us? Yet, strange to tell, if a digger steal away,
prospecting
for this true gold, into the unexplored solitudes around us, there is
no
danger that any will dog his steps, and endeavor to supplant him. He
may
claim and undermine the whole valley even, both the cultivated and the
uncultivated portions, his whole life long in peace, for no one will
ever
dispute his claim. They will not mind his cradles or his toms. He is
not
confined to a claim twelve feet square, as at Ballarat, but may mine
anywhere,
and wash the whole wide world in his tom.

[22]
Howitt says of the man who found the great nugget which weighed
twenty-eight
pounds, at the Bendigo diggings in Australia: "He soon began to drink;
got a horse, and rode all about, generally at full gallop, and, when he
met people, called out to inquire if they knew who he was, and then
kindly
informed them that he was 'the bloody wretch that had found the
nugget.'
At last he rode full speed against a tree, and nearly knocked his
brains
out." I think, however, there was no danger of that, for he had already
knocked his brains out against the nugget. Howitt adds, "He is a
hopelessly
ruined man." But he is a type of the class. They are all fast men. Hear
some of the names of the places where they dig: "Jackass Flat," —
"Sheep's-Head
Gully," — "Murderer's Bar," etc. Is there no satire in these names? Let
them carry their ill-gotten wealth where they will, I am thinking it
will
still be "Jackass Flat," if not "Murderer's Bar," where they live. [23]
The last resource of our energy has been the robbing of graveyards on
the
Isthmus of Darien,(9) an
enterprise
which appears to be but in its infancy; for, according to late
accounts,
an act has passed its second reading in the legislature of New Granada,(10)
regulating this kind of mining; and a correspondent of the "Tribune"
writes:
— "In the dry season, when the weather will permit of the country being
properly prospected, no doubt other rich 'Guacas' [that is, graveyards]
will be found." To emigrants he says: — "do not come before December;
take
the Isthmus route in preference to the Boca del Toro one;(11)
bring no useless baggage, and do not cumber yourself with a tent; but a
good pair of blankets will be necessary; a pick, shovel, and axe of
good
material will be almost all that is required": advice which might have
been taken from the "Burker's Guide."(12)
And he concludes with this line in Italics and small capitals: "If
you
are doing well at home, STAY THERE," which
may
fairly be interpreted to mean, "If you are getting a good living by
robbing
graveyards at home, stay there."

[24]
But why go to California for a text? She is the child of New England,
bred
at her own school and church.

1. The Fitchburg Railroad opened to Concord on
June 17, 1844,
then to Acton, past Walden Pond, on October 1, 1844. - back2. "Lord" Timothy Dexter (1748-1806), of Newburyport,
Mass,
known for his eccentricities - back3. The English Chancery Court developed from the Lord
Chancellor's
jurisdiction, in which judges decide the outcome of a case, as in a
property
dispute, by their interpretation of the law - back4. Plato (c.427–c.347 BC) Greek philosopher, a
student of Socrates,
writer, founder of the Academy in Athens, in the year 835, where
Aristotle
studied - back5. Reference to the California gold rush that began
in 1848
- back6. An early spelling of Muhammad - back7. Alfred W. Howitt (1830-1908) Australian
anthropologist, naturalist,
geologist, explorer - back8. Ballarat, Bendigo and Sulky Gully are places in
Australia
where gold was discovered - back9. Early name of the Isthmus of Panama, a narrow
strip of land
linking North and South America. - back10. Republic of New Granada (1831-1856), included
modern Colombia
and Panama - back11. Alternate crossings of Panama, to reach the
Pacific Ocean
- back12. Referance to William Burke (1792-1829), a serial
killer
in Edinburgh, Scotland, who sold bodies to a School of Anatomy in the
1820's
- back